LENT - Not for the Faint Hearted!

I am about to describe Lent in the 1950s and I am serious when I say it is not for the faint hearted, so dear readers, beware.  Do not read any (further as in more or farther as in down the page?) if you are blissfully unaware of the burden laid upon the tender backs of children by the Church!

Our parochial school revolved around the rites, observances, and liturgy of the Church.  When Lent commenced, the nuns gleefully geared up for six weeks of penance and suffering.  It started with the Ash Wednesday observance of mass and distribution of ashes.  Every Catholic in the world attended mass that day to get their ashes - Remember man that thou are dust and unto dust thou shalt return.  We would go to mass and get our ashes and rush to school to compare our crosses!  In later years, the parish priest would come to the school to distribute ashes to those who had not attended mass.  Ashes were a serious business and integral to the weeks that followed - a time to reflect on our unworthiness and to try and repent and make amends!

During Lent our school would have various fund raisers.  The nuns distributed little cardboard boxes that folded out to make a church.  We were to collect money in these boxes, bring them in, and then depending on how much we had raised, we could 'ransom' a little heathen baby in some under privileged place in the world.  One Lent, we had a huge chart on the wall with a picture of a church.  By raising a certain amount of money, we could colour in a brick or a window of this church to be built in some far off country.  My family was barely able to make ends meet so I was never able to accumulate enough money to be able to colour in one of those bricks or windows.  I was over whelmed with a huge sense of disappointment that all those heathen babies were left unbaptized because my parents would not give me money for my little Lent box!

My younger sister and I would trudge out in the dark each morning to attend daily mass.  On occasion, we would stop at the Two Brothers' Restaurant on Bloor Street for a breakfast of white toast and jam - a fitting reward for our diligence in getting to mass every day during Lent.  We would then return home in time to make porridge for breakfast for the rest of the family, and start the coffee for our parents.  We were so small we had to climb up on the counter to reach things in the cupboard.  Speaking of making coffee, Mrs Dallimore our next door neighbour, would send over one of her kids each morning with a coffee cup to be filled from our ever present coffee pot!  We never questioned this practice - it was what it was.

Fridays during Lent meant the Stations of the Cross.  The whole school, led by our resolute and often grim teachers, would head over to the Church for the dreaded 14 stations.  Crammed in there, in my winter gear, hot, sweaty and impatient, all I could think was 'Simon, pick up the damn cross - Veronica, wipe those tears - oh please, let it end'.  Is it any wonder that I spent every Saturday afternoon at confession!  Which segues into......

Saturday Afternoon Confession!  Every Saturday my father would gather up all the children who had made their First Communion, and haul us over to the Church to go to Confession.  I figured out quickly which priest meted out the least amount of penance based on the length of the line outside their confessional.  Surprisingly my main concern was not the accurate tallying of the number of times I had lied, disobeyed my parents, or got angry, but rather if I would remember the Act of Contrition that ended my part of the confession process.   I now wonder what those priest were thinking when listening to the 'confession' of a child.   I recall one priest saying as he dispensed penance and absolution, 'do something nice for your mother'.  Whoa there Father, that's not the deal.  Do something nice for my mother?  Please, just give me my five Hail Marys and five Our Fathers'.